Page 65 of What Happens in Amsterdam

The rage wins out.

I throw off the duvet with such force that it startles him.

“Jesus,” he says, holding a hand to his chest. “Didn’t realize you were still awake.”

He looks so soft in this nighttime lighting, the cathedral reflected in his glasses. That’s infuriating, too, that I am all sharp edges and he has the audacity to look this touchable.

“How was dinner with Rory?” I say flatly, not caring about how pillow-warped my hair must look or the fact that I’m braless in a T-shirt and tiny shorts. “The one who justhadto know that I was a UX designer. Because god forbid someone thinks you have a wife who’s unemployed.”

He gives me a bewildered look. “Danika,” he says as he approaches the bed, holding up his hands. “Slow down, okay? Let’s talk.” The top two buttons of his shirt are undone. Another infuriating detail.

“You had to introduce me that way—why? So that I wouldn’t jump in and tell him the truth? So I wouldn’t…embarrass you?”

“No,” he says, finally seeming to understand what I’m saying. “Because I didn’t want you to feel pressured to explain yourself when you’re still figuring it out. I don’t care if my colleagues know you’re not working right now.”

I’m still too riled to be touched by this gesture, even if it was semi-thoughtful. I push my fingertips into my eyes, heave out a breath. “It’s not just that. I’m just—I never really learned how to navigate the aftermath of getting yourself off while your fake husband does the same thing in the next room. My mistake.” My face flames with the memory as red attacks his cheeks. “So we’re back in this place where we don’t actually talk about anything that matters, and you know what? I really hate it.”

Now he looks properly confused. “I didn’t even drink tonight and I’m still lost. Where is all this coming from?”

“Are you serious? It can’t be a mystery.”

“Enlighten me, then. Please.”

It’s too good to see him pleading, even if it brings back thatvision of me at the edge of the counter, completely bare to him, his face between my legs.

I want this man on his knees either way—whether he’s begging forgiveness or making me cry out his name.

“Enlighten you. Sure. Let’s talk about the real problem, then,” I say, thrusting aside the duvet so I can get to my feet, anger thrumming all the way down to my toes. “Thirteen years ago. The fact that we had aplan. We made ittogether. And then you went home and changed your mind. Decided I wasn’t ‘ambitious’ enough for you and didn’t even give us a chance to talk about it.” I stomp over to where he’s standing, wishing I were about three feet taller and wearing at least 30 percent more clothes. Still, it’s an adrenaline rush, finally having the courage to say all of this to his face. “So what the fuck really happened, Wouter?”

I’m not expecting the words to hit him like a blow to the chest. He staggers backward, runs a hand down his face, jostles his glasses. He’s less soft now. More wrecked.

“Oh my god…” He shakes his head as the reality sinks in. “That message. That stupid message. I had no idea you were still thinking about it. It—it haunted me for so long.”

“Better to be haunted than dating a girl with zero ambition, right?”

He gives me this hollow, tortured look. “It was callous. I know. But there was a life waiting for me in Amsterdam I didn’t think I could just turn my back on. I thought I was supposed to be this person with a clear path, even though I know now that I was too young to have any of it set in stone.”

The room is too small and there isn’t enough air. I snatch up one of the swan towels, ruining someone’s hard work as I clutch it tight in my fist. “And I didn’t fit into that life.”

“Some part of me thought so. Yes. I’m not proud of it, but I don’twant to lie to you,” he says. “But there was more. I thought if I gave you a reason, if I told you I wanted to be with someone more ambitious…then maybe you’d hate me. And that would make it easier. The truth is, any reality where I wasn’t with you sounded only marginally better than the pain of trying to make it work with all that distance between us.”

I choke out a laugh. “So you told me ‘bye, thanks for everything’ to spare my feelings?”

“Because I didn’t think I’d be able to get over you otherwise! Is that so hard to imagine?” His eyes are blazing, chest rapidly rising and falling. “If we’re really talking about this, what about you? You sure didn’t wait long before you moved on.”

“I—what?”

“I saw on your social media. You were dating some football player a few weeks later. Soccer, whatever. I figured the breakup didn’t even affect you if you already had a new boyfriend that fast. You just swapped me out for the next guy, someone more convenient.”

I’m struck by this. He seems actually, genuinelyhurtin a way I never anticipated. “Wouter—that wasn’t anything real. It barely lasted a month. I was missing you, and I thought seeing someone else might help me get over you faster.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

What he said that first evening comes back to me, about the relationship not being what either of us thought it was.

“You knew I was all in with you,” I say quietly, my teenage aching steeped in those words. “You knew I loved you. That didn’t just change overnight.”

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